This is the time of year when I get kind of cranky and want to rip everything out, throw some compost on the garden and be done with it.

Like other gardeners that also experienced the drought, I’m reevaluating my plant choices and I have vowed to eliminate those plants that need too much babying. Dragging garden hoses around the yard gets old fast.

Though the rains we’ve gotten in the last few weeks have refreshed the garden and my spirit, it’s still easy to see which plants handled the drought well and which ones didn’t. It’s just too little too late for some.

For example, when I bought a nice, healthy ligularia (a.k.a. leopard plant or ragwort) a few years ago, I knew it was a water hog. But those burgundy leaves were more than I could resist. Bad move.